


do not forgive me

by KyberHearts



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Canon Compliant, Character Death, F/M, I've always wanted to use that tag, Multi, Reflection, Unreliable Narrator, angst? angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 22:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14554542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyberHearts/pseuds/KyberHearts
Summary: Once Dandelion's surprise regarding an old friend's return from death and Toussaint starts to fade, Regis tells the truth, of sorts.





	do not forgive me

**Author's Note:**

> Blood and Wine spoilers ahead :0

She was born Sylvia Anna, but as we know when it comes to monikers, the duquessa’s older sister much preferred Syanna.

Tradition is sacred, and nowhere else than in Toussaint does it hold the utmost respect. We together attended our share of official banquets gilded in gold in that fairytale land. I remember how the knights would raise their swords in one hand, a tankard in the other, and swear on the cowardly heron til they were red in the face. Though when it came to Syanna’s parents, it seemed no problem to exile the daughter with immediate claim to the duchy.

Syanna, like the Black Sun that so neatly paved destiny and her death, was greatly eclipsed by Anna Henrietta. The younger sister had such romantic ideals for the sovereign. I myself am not too intimate with the duquessa, but isn’t it evident that she is a patron of the arts? Of nonpartisanship? Did this appeal better to her parents, than Syanna who would stain Toussaint with her curse?

It seems plausible to think that the banishment was inevitable. Political gossip would surely increase tenfold as soon as Syanna was old enough to assume a court position. In my personal opinion, I wager they could have been the first royal family to condemn the superstitious beliefs that tormented women of the Black Sun.

A few years after her banishment, Syanna was declared missing and dead by the duchy that no longer wanted to know her.

* * *

Upon seeing the dozen ravens that hop and croak along the eaves of the toy shop, Dettlaff nearly refuses to enter. He is looking for neither conversation nor confrontation; he wants a semblance of peace and quiet, at least until he’s summoned to murder for Rhena’s sake.

The ravens flap their wings and shriek impatiently. _He’s been waiting all day._

Dettlaff enters. He flicks his eyes around the shop and sees how dust settles differently. A Nilfgaardian soldier no longer lies prone; someone has propped him up, and fixed the crooked black-winged helmet. Crates have shifted amidst the abandoned building in a fruitless search for something besides children’s toys and eviction notices.

He looks at the staircase and the dust-free footprints that do not belong to him. One is caked with mud and weeds, courtesy of a necropolis beyond the Beauclair city port. The other stinks of shoe polish. Two individuals entered the shop; one has yet to leave.

“I can hear you, Dettlaff. Come upstairs. I’ve been waiting all day.”

Emiel Regis perks up at his reluctant, sullen appearance.

“My friend,” Regis greets, standing from a desk covered in papers and broken toys. The smile lines around his onyx black eyes crease and deepen. “Oh, if only these were better circumstances.” After a tentative moment, Dettlaff embraces him as vampires customarily do. “I must apologize for my earlier intrusion in your stance against the witcher. But as Geralt is a close and dear friend to me, I could not sit idle. Surely you understand.”

Dettlaff might not understand, no, though he certainly recognizes the vampire’s tendency to ramble. Like the scent of herbs that nearly overwhelm him, Regis is overtly familiar and dearly missed.

“You should have stayed in Ebbing,” Dettlaff says quietly, pulling back.

“I know,” Regis admits.

Even in the fading daylight, Dettlaff can see something is amiss with his silver-haired friend. Dettlaff gently tilts Regis’s chin upwards and studies his features. The whites of his eyes are dyed with broken blood vessels, and he looks as haggard as the first few months of his regeneration.

“Your eyes,” Dettlaff remarks, “And your complexion. What happened?”

“In a series of events, the witcher and I had to resort to a rather strenuous method to track you down. I shall tell you all about it later. Because you have finally arrived, I think we should talk about more immediate matters.”

Regis had contemplated whether or not to directly confront him about the incriminating letters, the clear verdict of not guilty for the Beast of Beauclair. He wishes to promptly reassure his innocence and soothe Dettlaff’s conscience.

However, despite his apparent certainty, Regis had spent the past few hours nervously ripping at the frayed edges of his frock; he wondered about his friend’s state of mind and his more-than-usual reserve, while running through all the possible scenarios and outcomes in which Dettlaff refuses their help.

Where to start, where to start?

Then his dark eyes flick over the far wall. He cannot help but ask:

“Is that Rhenawedd?”

Dettlaff had thrown her likeness, with black wisps of hair and a distracted gaze on this decrepit, peeling plaster.

He manages to look at the charcoal sketch, once, before he tears his gaze away. Rhenawedd had recently been in his life for a brief, unadulterated period of time. Now the thought of her is corrupted with vivid imagination: Rhena, trapped and isolated, her fate uncertain and undecided;. Should Dettlaff fail with each passing saintly holiday, she might forever be lost to only memory.

“If you know why I have become the Beast,” Dettlaff says to Regis, “then you know why I cannot stop. The letters come from the shadows. Before I have the slightest chance to investigate further, find Rhena or her captors, I remember that if I am discovered--”

Regis sets a patient hand on his shoulder. “I wish to free you from this violent endeavor. Geralt and I can help you. We are unknown to your enemies, and we may be able to discover more with our own resources. After all, it is how we found you.”

Dettlaff narrows his eyes. “You truly believe this is possible?”

“Completely, and wholeheartedly. We can rescue Rhenawedd, and find the ones who blackmailed you.”

The dark-haired vampire starts as Regis takes his hand and returns the ring that he’d lost only a few days prior. It is cool to the touch; it is a metal that exists in a world far away, their home before the realms conspired and overlapped, bringing the language and people of an ancient time. The ring itself speaks of kindness.

“I cannot wear this,” Dettlaff tries to say. “I have killed with the hand that wore this ring, I do not deserve--” The conflict is evident on his face; there’s static in Dettlaff’s mind, plagued with thoughts of the dead, mutilated and mocked for all of Beauclair to see. He does not know these men, only how they look small once all breath leaves their bodies.

Regis firmly folds his hands over Dettlaff’s. “Then simply keep the ring safe,” he urges. “Stash it somewhere safe, until you are ready to accept it again. These murders alone cannot be your fault.”

“But I cannot--”

“Killing does not suit you, Dettlaff.”

Regis is stubborn. There will be no stopping him and his convictions. So he shakes his head, and slowly walks over to his desk. Dettlaff says, “You speak of the witcher. Does he think the same? What are his intentions?”

“Geralt aims to stop the killings.”

“You once stood between us. What is this man to you?”

“I call him a friend, too. Though whereas we are bound by blood, Geralt and I forged a bond when we were in a company. I joined his cause, and ultimately resigned at the castle Stygga.” Regis pauses. “He went on to rescue a sorceress and a young girl, both of whom are very dear to him.”

Dettlaff opens the red music box he’d fixed in the recent days. Its melody sings in the early evening, clear and haunting. He sets the celestial ring inside. “I do not think he will give up the idea of letting me walk so freely, even after all of this is over.”

Regis grips his satchel tightly. “I understand your hesitation, which is why I am doing my damned hardest to prove your innocence.”

“You are not obliged.”

“You are wrong.”

The dark-haired vampire offers no protest.

“Someone conspires against your heart. I would be less a vampire and a friend if I did not help.” Regis picks up one of the broken toys on the desk: a tin soldier whose limbs hang loosely, and requires a new coat of paint. “Hmm. You always liked to fiddle and fix things. Myself, included.” The vampire holds out the toy to Dettlaff, who takes it as if it were made of glass.

“I will fix this too. Once I find Rhena,” says Dettlaff, sitting down with a sigh, “we will leave Beauclair together. Go somewhere, far, far away.”

He does not entertain the possibility that Rhenawedd is already dead. Nor does Dettlaff want to imagine that her captors will continue to keep him on a leash after the fifth death, asking him to instead lay siege to towns. With Rhena in clear and evident danger, Dettlaff cannot predict what will happen next. He hates not being in control. The vampire turns the tin soldier in his hands, his mind already elsewhere. He’s back in Metinna, with Rhenawedd and her wickedly sharp tongue.

Rhena often told him of fairytales and happy endings, talking about how she grew up on the stories of talking animals, mischievous children, and fantasy lands. Dettlaff, because he is in love with her, hangs on to each and every word.

 _And the princess in the tower,_ Rhena had whispered to him, _would sit in her room and stand by the window, looking out across the land. Day after day, and night after night, she waited dutifully, knowing that someone would eventually love her enough to rescue her._

“Do you believe in happy endings, Regis?” Dettlaff asks as he fumbles and tinkers clumsily with the broken tin soldier.

The other vampire had found a seat in the corner of the attic, again studying the letters and names with renewed focus. He is taken back by the abrupt question, and looks at Dettlaff curiously. “Well,” Regis says, “I believe that we must try.”

* * *

When I saw her, Rhenawedd was slightly different than the charcoal sketch. Her raven-black hair had been shorn off, and there was a fresh scar over her eyebrow. I might have first described the look on Syanna’s face as concern, or timid apprehension when she gazed at us. As if she was in wonder that Dettlaff would willingly tear across a sovereign for her, just for her.

Then again, I knew Dettlaff’s Rhenawedd so briefly.

The moment Geralt had drawn the connections between the murders, blackmail, and the duquessa’s sister’s involvement, the young woman instantly became someone who had betrayed my friend’s trust. Now I can only think that she had the expression of a child who had been caught stealing sweets from the cupboard.

As the witcher stripped Rhenawedd’s credibility and identity, revealing only Syanna underneath, I noticed that she had a tell. It was clearly obvious, though not at the time. She would hide her hand behind her back like thus, in an attempt to hide her unease or even fear.

Some part of me believes that she deserved to be afraid for intentionally deceiving a vampire. Given that said vampire was Dettlaff, dear and close to me-- well, that further skewed my views of Syanna.

In the three days betwixt her implication and his very real threat to raze Beauclair, the witcher and I went to track Dettlaff down.

* * *

The witcher and the vampire emerge from what remains of the Trastamara Estate. They had spent most of the early morning hours stomping through the fog-ridden lands, driving wraiths away with a flash of silver. Whenever one of the specters would appear on the horizon, Regis would make some convenient excuse to dawdle elsewhere. They eventually return to the main road, boots and clothes sticky with mud and the lingering, reeking smell of wraiths. “Where to, now?” Regis asks.

“Try the harbor, then across the lake.” Geralt squints at the sky. Sunrise is only a few minutes away, but he can’t remember the last time he’d slept. The witcher might end up nodding off in the saddle. Despite having fought pack of barghests an hour earlier, his skin itches for a fight. He wants to finish this damn contract and leave this sparkling fairytale land.

“There are only a handful of places left to search,” Regis says, perhaps spying the weary look on his face. “It shall be easy. And if we fail, we will see him at Tesham Mutna.”

“If I didn’t know any better,” Geralt grumbles. “I’d say that you were happy that we couldn’t find Dettlaff.”

“Let me set your mind at ease,” the vampire replies swiftly. With the mounting agitation of their futile search, he’d been expecting such an accusation. “I merely want to find him before the duchy stumbles across his hiding place. Dettlaff would not take kindly to the intrusion and--”

“And what? Kill them? Murder some knights? Threaten the entire city? What hasn’t he done?” Geralt saddles Roach, then urges her to steadily canter forward. The path is singular, narrow, and leaves no room for conversation until they see the distant harbor again.

“Dettlaff would not be so rash,” says Regis, keeping pace with his plodding pack mule.

The witcher’s hands tighten on the reins. “You say that he’s not a killer, yet he’s also wildly unpredictable and emotional. Violent and volatile aren’t great combinations. Even worse when it’s a higher vampire. The nearly indestructible kind.”

“You don’t know him like I do.”

Geralt flashes him an angry, untempered look. “Might as well appoint yourself as his legal counsel. What _don’t_ I know? You owe Dettlaff your life. He’s not a murderer at heart. He will stop killing if we give into his terms. That’s what you keep saying, again and again. Is there anything else?”

The morning sun scorches them in silence. Toussaint starts anew, the population blissfully unaware of a vampire’s threat that would follow in a little more than twelve hours. While they are wary of the ever prowling Beast of Beauclair, but at the sight of the passing white-haired witcher, some of their fear is alleviated.

Roach tosses her head and snorts. It’s been some time since she last rested at the Corvo Bianco stables.

When Geralt eventually risks a look, he sees that the vampire has turned to gaze at the distant fortress ruins.

Then in a quiet, carefully measured voice, Regis asks, “What would you like me to say?”

* * *

"I vow that not a hair on her head shall come to any harm. I trust I’ve dispelled your doubts, then?"

This is not the first time Regis has lied to Geralt; it will not be the last.

The witcher with a sickly gray visage, thanks to the poison and potions in his bloodstream, does not acknowledge the promise nor the doubt that stirs in his gut. He wants to believe Regis and his idea of a happy ending where everyone gets to walk away, alive and well. But who is he trying to convince, Geralt or himself?

He looks into his friend’s pitch black eyes.

* * *

At first, the word ‘anathema’ is pleasing to the ear. It lies in the same realm as excommunication. For myself, it is exile from my brethren. Should I fight against my own, I bring the curse upon my name and life. In theory, it concerns me to a certain degree. I have already spent most of my years living away from others.

Now suppose that Dettlaff, a higher vampire who innately creates pack bonds with his lesser kin, does the same. Suppose he kills me for whatever reason. He is immediately stripped of the one thing he can rely on: being a vampire, among vampires.

* * *

“Not afraid?”

“I can handle him.”

Geralt does not sound convinced by her assured tone. “Sure about that?”

“You look at him as a witcher and see a monster. I know what he’s really like. You needn’t worry.” Syanna turns around to face him once more, tucking one of her hands behind her back. Her pale eyes flick all around the Fablesphere: its overgrown meadows, the crumbling tower in the background, and the overall taste of something that has gone sour, untamed. “It’s time to go. Just a bit more work and we’ll be able to say sod off to this fucking Fablesphere.”

Three not-so-little pigs, two beans, and one giant later, they finally reach the castle in the clouds. It had been grand, once upon a time. The two sisters and Jack would chase each other around the ogre’s legs as he clumsily staggered around his home. And when Syanna and Anna would grow bored with mercilessly teasing the world’s inhabitants, they would return home without a second thought.

As Geralt clambers into the well at her behest, Syanna distantly wonders what would happen if she claimed jumping off the tower battlements would take them back to the real world. The witcher doesn’t question her orders; he’s just glad to leave this malicious fairytale and he disappears into the beyond--

\--and Syanna hesitates.

She could stay in this degraded illusion. It’s not much better than Toussaint, though the children and the monsters here know, and do not shun her. While the outside world burns, Syanna could just sit and savor freedom for a while longer. Leave the people of Beauclair to bleed out in the streets, dammit, whether or not they deserve it--

Then Syanna shuts her eyes, curses, and then approaches the well.

It’s just as she remembers: the vertigo, the whisper of clouds against her skin, and then the crude landing in the middle of the palace grounds. Geralt is still on his hands and knees, oblivious to her momentary delay. He shakes fountain water from his hair like a dog, and gazes at her with those cat eyes. Syanna doesn’t trust this man, nor his fantastic ideals of witcher neutrality.

Nor does she trust the vampire who approaches, whose dark eyes accuse her at every turn. Gods above, he has the same disapproving expression as her father, may he rot in death. To think that Regis and Dettlaff were once youths together.

_Dettlaff._

She is far from eager to meet him at the ruins of Tesham Mutna. If questioned, Syanna would vehemently protest against the idea of being afraid; though, the absence of fear does not instill courage.

* * *

I made a promise that I would not stop Geralt if he truly wished to fight Dettlaff.

I… I trusted Geralt to remain clear-headed and neutral. I relied on his moral inclinations. I was biased; this remains. In my heart, I already knew who was the villain of Beauclair. So if he saw that Dettlaff was beyond assistance, or redemption, then I would force myself to set aside any reservations.

I had only one side of the story. I do not know Syanna, and I never will.

* * *

Rhenawadd had been the first name on the tip of her tongue; it meant something like _queen’s daughter_ in the Aen Siedhe language, a nickname scrapped alongside _cursed child_ or _dear sister_. Syanna expected, least of all, that it would fall from the lips of a vampire who kissed and worshipped her like the sun.

Sovereigns commanded political favors and coin. Bandits dealt in bloodshed and tithes. She had the experience of a duke’s daughter, and a leader of marauders, but she’d never ruled anything quite like a vampire’s heart. Though he warmed her bed, and at often times drew her mind elsewhere, Dettlaff had no lasting role in her life. He became trivial. Years later, as she ambitiously dreams of life as Toussaint’s sole monarch, Syanna thinks that her time with the vampire was not wasted after all.

_When the charming prince finally arrived, he greeted her with a grandiose bow and a true love’s kiss._

As the crimson curls of mist fade into the nighttime, Syanna turns and sees her fate reflected in the higher vampire’s cold, ice blue eyes. Nothing about him suggests forgiveness, or a willingness to listen. It was so unlike their reunion in the tower three days past, when the vampire had grabbed her and examined her for cracks or flaws. As if she were his possession, not a person.

She doesn’t hate him; she pitied his obliviousness. He was harmless as long as he remained in a fairytale where Rhenawedd was not Syanna.

Memories about the vampire’s devotion and her unbroken pride rile against each other; her conscience stabs her. Funny, Syanna thought that it’d burnt with the rest of the virtues. Hearing the vampire say _Rhena_ , she suddenly longs to reach out and watch him cave into her touch like he did all those years ago. Render him powerless, submit under her cursed touch. Make him believe that there was never a Black Sun, or a daughter named Sylvia Anna who was born at the wrong time.

Just once more.

Dettlaff seizes her hand and yanks it away, his grip unrelenting. Panic rises in her throat. If Syanna could lie for a few more moments, for a instant that might save her life--

* * *

Now listen closely, poet, for I cannot finish this story myself.

We shall go to Toussaint together. Return to those clear blue skies and lounging valleys, then you must go to the palace and see the duquessa. Listen to her mourn and weep for the sister that was driven from a home that should have protected her. Anna has lost her sister, twice in a lifetime. Tell her that it is not her fault. Speak the truth that she wants to hear.

Syanna was responsible for the death of four knights. Learn their names and the morals that they soiled. If you must shit on the memories of these valorous men, only to show that they deserve none of the duchy’s respect-- I believe, then you might begin to understand an inkling of Syanna’s motives.

I know not who might have been her fifth victim in her reign of terror. But they must have betrayed her, and acted without compassion. For a woman who knew no such kindness in her life, it would be easy to assume it was someone close and dear to her.

Most of all, when you find yourself in Toussaint, I want you to learn about Sylvia Anna Henrietta and the person she might have become, if I were not too indifferent to her fate. Do not forgive me, Dandelion. Be angry. I’ve all the time to reflect on mine and Dettlaff’s grievances.

I do not doubt that you will make a beautiful ballad from the mystery and betrayal, deceit and death… but for her sister’s sake, give Syanna a happy ending. Paint her as the royal daughter who only turned villainous because she was left at a forest’s edge in a torn lace dress, with tear-streaked cheeks and a vow of vengeance.

Make it like a child’s fairytale. Fix all the broken and bloody parts. Replace the knights with bandits, and throw in a few starry-eyed lovers, dreaming among the clouds of the Fablesphere. Let Syanna cross swords with her tormentors, and win. She finds a happily ever after, in a land of wine and virtues, reunited with her sister. While in mine eyes, she does not deserve it, her story demands nothing less.

Would you compose such, Dandelion?

**Author's Note:**

> (note! while i have completed the story i have only seen the ending where dettlaff walks away. here, dettlaff's fate is ambiguous)
> 
> Besides yelling about blood and wine to anyone willing to listen, I've been mulling over the characters (primarily regis) and their roles. It was strangely difficult for me to write for Syanna, but I might have managed. Let me know! I really enjoyed writing this.


End file.
